Upfront Fun

21 Sep Upfront Fun

I’m really happy with how this batch of photos turned out with the Upfront. I’ve done the marketing photography for the Upfront Theatre for about a year now, a handful of shoots completed within that time. But this set really came together well. I guess that boils down to two critical things, if you ask me. Myself, mainly a location photographer, love to work with interesting environments, colors, textures, etc. The Upfront theater is kind of the exact opposite of what I look for when I’m out and about shooting. That is a plain stage, plain walls, plain background to the stage. Not that that’s a bad thing for the Upfront, that puts all the attention on the improv players, which is exactly where it should be, but makes my job a little more challenging in making an overall visually interesting photograph. Like most insightful photographers should, if they are not “feeling” a background/location, they switch it up, but I do not have this option here. So, I had to tackle this from a different approach. Now, not only am I to make these visually engaging in a fairly plain environment, I also have to ensure that I can capture comedy effectively in a photograph. There is something about comedy that is best translated in motion and sound, and photos… well photos, they kinda take a back seat in that art form. However, if done right, photos can be well-timed and capture some great expressions.

So, the two things that I think came together on this shoot to take photos in this environment to the next level… 1.) My lighting and photographic approach – I’ve slowly adjusted my lighting to best capture facial expressions as well as the rest of the body(s). Simple feat maybe if you have a single person or even two standing in single spot. But these are all over the place, covering the distance of the entire stage. A lot of challenges come into play at that point with lighting position, angles, the inverse square law, etc. Played with different lenses, perspectives, angles, etc from the camera end of things. The end result, I found some things that will forever help me in the realm of shooting comedy, simply put. Things that will be my default starting point when shooting this style. Reason 2.) The upfront players came at me with some great material/scenarios to shoot. The combination made for some excellent material for marketing.

I’d like to get into explaining a lot of these photo setups, but you’d be more confused when I was done, so I’m gonna leave these up to interpretation and only by saying that these are all based off of skits, shows, and characters that regularly show their faces at the Upfront. Enjoy. A side note, all of these are basically right out of the camera, no editing here, just small adjustments like small white balance tweaks and ensuring the exposure is where I like it.